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Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

telegraph.co.uk

81–90 of 833 posts

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious, what effect do you see WW2 having on science itself? That is not intended to be argumentative, I'd like to hear your opinion.

Government funding of science and a proposal/grant system. Senior people spend a lot of time writing proposals, and need underlings to do the leg work. They also have to be politically savvy so their peers don't reject their proposals.

To expand on this, before World War II, there was far less federal funding for science, and I don't think university faculty had the need to bring in external funding that they do now. I don't know the history of requirements that faculty bring in funding, however.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK45556/

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#82
post #35

Some additional perspectives: Snopes is highly skeptical: https://www.snopes.com/news/2021/07/16/lab-leak-evidence/ An r/science essay from a PhD in virology is highly skeptical: https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/gk6y95/covid19_did... While Root Claim estimates an 83% chance of a lab leak: https://www.rootclaim.com/analysis/What-is-the-source-of-COV...

Snopes and Reddit are not credible.

The source isn't Reddit, it's a published virologist, and he himself cites over a hundred academic sources. Reddit is the medium.

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#83
And we have research now that hypothesizes that Omicron incubated in mice and then jumped back to humans.

If that hypothesis is true, then we have a fine example of something running in the background in a reservoir and then Hey, Presto! suddenly appearing to be mutated specifically for humans.

If that's true, then all manner of "weird" things suddenly become both plausible and probable without any human intervention at all.

As for "lab leak"--at this point all we can do is shrug. China will NEVER allow that to be investigated if there is even the slightest possibility of being true. Period. Full stop.

Barring a whistleblower with hard evidence, we'll never know.

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#84
post #58

> “further debate would do unnecessary harm to science in general and science in China in particular”. You know what else causes unnecessary harm to science, public trust and health policy? Repeated and condescending lies and gas-lighting from those in charge.

so also does the firehose of conspiracy theory's, misinformation and lunatic fringe that appears to be the overtly noisy minority on all forms of media these days.

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#85
post #3

[But a leading scientist told Sir Jeremy that “further debate would do unnecessary harm to science in general and science in China in particular”. Dr Collins, the former director of the US National Institutes of Health, warned it could damage “international harmony”.] The entire foundation of science is based upon empirical observation and asking hypothetical questions. It is discouraging that scientists can make sta…

Quoted post unavailable.

The CCP is already furthering oppression more than anyone else. They have absolutely decimated the indigenous way of Chinese life because they are anti culture and anti religion, except where it aligns with their party ideology. Harming their credibility actually helps the “actual” indigenous Chinese people and way of life.

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#86
post #35

Some additional perspectives: Snopes is highly skeptical: https://www.snopes.com/news/2021/07/16/lab-leak-evidence/ An r/science essay from a PhD in virology is highly skeptical: https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/gk6y95/covid19_did... While Root Claim estimates an 83% chance of a lab leak: https://www.rootclaim.com/analysis/What-is-the-source-of-COV...

That PhD virologist comes off as not credible at all, as part of their response is to deny the entire possibility of lab leaks in general. Their argument is that industrial accidents are simply caused by incompetence or lack of funding, and WIV is well-funded and run by competent people: therefore, bad things simply cannot happen. Their attitude is fundamentally unserious.

https://old.reddit.com/r/science/comments/gk6y95/covid19_did... (4.1)

>"I say this as someone who has been to these conferences, who knows many scientists who work on dangerous viruses, and work in facilities like the Wuhan Institute of Virology. We virologists know this group, we know about the WIV, and the WIV facilities do not frighten us. We do not view WIV as “unsound” or “risky” or “dangerous” or “incompetent” (76)."

>"We’re not worried about BSL4 labs that are well-equipped, well-funded, etc. (like the WIV is)."

>[...] "We biosecurity people are also very concerned about new BSL4 labs being built in developing countries in South America and Africa (99). But, you know what’s interesting? The WIV and its researchers are part of these committees that get together and discuss what to do about these challenges. They are part of the people who are helping to decide what is “safe enough” for a BSL4 lab! We here in the US agree with the WIV about what “safe” means (76). And the biggest reason for that is that we here in the United States helped train WIV researchers. We are the ones who taught them how to work with these dangerous viruses (76,100,101)."

(There are no buffer overflows in this C code: I'm very competent and experienced and how dare you).

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#87
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a virus essentially identical to the original wild type SARS-CoV-2 is found in a wild animal population that would be fairly strong evidence against the lab leak hypothesis, although not an absolute disproof. Researchers have looked and not found such, so it remains an open question. So far the closest we've come is a bat virus in Laos but it has some significant genetic differences. https://www.nature.com/article…

Couldn’t someone just inject the original virus into a nearby animal population and say ‘look what we found!’ ?

I'm not a biologist but I believe it should be repeatable, i.e. the animal should be able to pass it on in lab.

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#88
post #9
post #3

[But a leading scientist told Sir Jeremy that “further debate would do unnecessary harm to science in general and science in China in particular”. Dr Collins, the former director of the US National Institutes of Health, warned it could damage “international harmony”.] The entire foundation of science is based upon empirical observation and asking hypothetical questions. It is discouraging that scientists can make sta…

> warned it could damage “international harmony”. I've never understood the argument that people would want to suppress the (accidental) lab-leak hypothesis out of a desire to protect the image of China. If the lab-leak hypothesis is incorrect, that doesn't change the fact that the virus originated in that country, it just means that the virus emerged from a wet market. I'm not Chinese, but I'd imagine that a country…

No post body was provided.

Re: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab, but feared debate could hurt

#90
post #83

And we have research now that hypothesizes that Omicron incubated in mice and then jumped back to humans. If that hypothesis is true, then we have a fine example of something running in the background in a reservoir and then Hey, Presto! suddenly appearing to be mutated specifically for humans. If that's true, then all manner of "weird" things suddenly become both plausible and probable without any human intervention…

"If you find that [a government] has lost, destroyed, or failed to preserve any evidence whose contents or quality are material to the issues in this case, then you may draw an inference unfavorable to the [government]." West Virg. Jury Inst. 5.03
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